Former colleagues get together to build platform to track missing data about Covid-19

Alexis Madrigal and Robinson Meyer, two journalists at The Atlantic, were concerned about the lack of data available about the situation on the coronavirus pandemic in the USA. They felt they had to do something to help people understand what was actually happening.

The two started reaching out to health officials in all fifty states and gathered all the data they could on how many people where being tested. Their investigation resulted on a joint article that detailed how the process of testing was being carried out in the USA.

After the article was published, Alexis Madrigal was contacted by Jeff Hammerbacher, an old colleague and data scientist, that was impressed by their work and shared that he too was gathering data to track the situation. They decided to gather their data and built the COVID Tracking Project - an intensive effort to gather and report the countrywide numbers about Covid-19, on a daily basis. The database includes data for every state along with extensive notes that explain nuances in the data and reasons why the project’s totals might differ from published state data.

The project has now gathered an extensive team of volunteers, working hard to keep the platform updated. Madrigal says that one of the main objectives of the project “is to put pressure on the decision-makers responsible for getting out tests and reporting results“.

More information: https://covidtracking.com/

Adapted from: https://www.cjr.org/the_profile/covid-tracking-project.php